#i say as i have spent two days straight working on this amv and got a solid 30 seconds done. sans transitions for like half of it... (。_。)

[portalradio]

god bless this nearly decade old ae tutorial that taught me about using the roto brush to mask today. i had been doing that shit by hand with the pen tool for YEARS ಥ_ಥ

[mr-kamiyama]

A Word for Zoomers Who're Told They're "Making Up" Genders and Orientations.

I'm an Xer.

Well, actually I'm in that b.1977-85 throe where no two people can agree what I am. I'm Post Dankai Junior in the old country, but I was too old to be a kid for Pokémon, Harry Potter, I caught Digimon 02 during its premiere US run a rare Saturday the firm I worked at, that normally had Saturday hours, was closed. I met Windows Millennium Edition because a housemate, as back then, I'd realised I wanted to live with company, wanted to upgrade our computer to the newest version of Windows (and I promptly made AMVs using GIFs and lost them to the sands of time all before YouTube even existed) So that gives you an idea of my age.

I came out for the first time in high school. I came out as bi.

In Japan, transness, like here had different words we no longer use, but unlike here, wasn't a secret.

If I'd stayed in Japan just one more year, in '95 politician Kamikawa Aya began advocating on NHK for trans rights.

Maybe I'd've learned that transition *to* male and actual medical treatment like HRT to make that possible existed a whole lot sooner.

But I didn't. And so, I didn't realise it was actually something I could *do* and I wasn't doomed to be stuck until about 2010.

I claimed "bi" in the '90s, and mistook "you're a really cool person and really nice to me when few people are and so I really like you in a platonic sense" +aesthetic attraction for crushes of a romantic and sexual nature.

The SAM model was developed by bi people in the '70s, but where and when I was, there weren't exactly highly visible LGBT centres where I could learn this. So I thought any orientation had to be "x-sexual"

And I only knew about straight, gay/lesbian, and bi.

Which, the term "laaaaaaaabelllls" was coined by biphobic people my age. See, we weren't like people today, who literally can't live because of unfettered crony capitalism. You could get a nice studio on the nice side of town for eight days' work at minimum wage (of course, being POC, you had to find the right realtor), which back then was under four dollars an hour. You could get a 2br/1.5ba rowhouse for about two weeks' worth, which is half a month, but these days, that much work will get you a barely-studio in shoot-you-in-the-face-in-broad-daylight territory.

But we were still plenty suspicious of marketing. So queerphobic Xers went "don't make me acknowledge your filthy non-mono sexuality! What if I told you naming what you are is dehumanising, like labelling a jar of mayo, and you're the product!"

Which is no different that queerphobic Millennials claiming "Queer is a slur uwu call it gay because cisgay and cishet are the only valid IDs uwu Gay has never ever been used as a pejorative uwu"

Which is also bunk because back in the '90s, if one young man did ANYTHING another didn't like, the other one could call it and him "gaaayyy" and that would be a homophobic attack via toxic masculinity on the first young man. Heck, I don't listen to much grunge, though I did at the time, but it's used this way in some Nirvana song. I just can't remember which one.

Anyway, so I claimed bi and spent the next 23 or so years fighting for it even against physical violence to make me claim something in the false straight/gay binary

All along, I thought "the mushy stuff squicks me because I'm a guy (insert ways I justified things before I realised that yes, I actually am male for prior to 2010)" which, yeah, I'm still sorting through the myriad manifestations of toxic masculinity and learning to spot them. What that actually is is romance repulsion.

I'm actually aroace.

To go further, I actually have very strong platonic affection feelings, and "idemromantic" is not necessarily my actual identity, but that, and at least some idea, if even wrong, that the other party was interested, was how I sorted whether I should approach the other person as "friend" or "potential partner" subconsciously.

Plus to further complicate things, I'm sex-favourable ace/cupiosexual, which meant that just hearing limited definitions of things like sex repulsion in aces didn't clue me in. It wasn't until discussing what sexual attraction was with a newly-realised gay first wave Xer last year that I realised I had no idea what that was and had never felt it, and was therefore asexual. Which after the discussion with that guy, I dove into readings by you all on Tumbler first.

And I only realised I'm aromantic last month, though I've been questioning for actually a year this month.

Now, I'd say my aesthetic attraction is definitely bi, and yes, I accept the redefinition made with the info we have now of two or more genders including your own" which *I read* as "but not necessarily all genders, and perceived gender is a factor" whereas pan seems to me like "perceived gender is not a factor in attraction" ??

Now, I still actually don't have an idea about my potential aesthetic feelings towards people who present NB. The men and women I feel it towards tend to have this or that decidedly masculine or feminine traits, and I may never, because people my age are less likely to come out.

Whether orientation or gender, people my age are products of a very binary 20th century. We were really all sorts of shape pegs, but many of us were and still are dodecahedrons and whatnot with choices of only square, circle, and mayyybe triangle holes.

Naturally, the dodecahedrons and the hexagons all tried to jam themselves in circle and square holes, whichever ones it looked like we could maybe wedge into.

This means plenty of us are going around thinking things like "I guess I don't like sex because I'm a woman" or "I guess I don't like the mushy stuff because I'm a man" or "I don't feel female so I guess I'm a man because I'm AMAB and that's all I got" etc.

Those most likely to come out are those with very strong NB/aro/ace feelings WHO BECOME INFORMED. And some may still not, or those with feelings they can't sort, because they've lived so long the previous way, they may at least feel they have too much to lose.

There's also people like me that need a lot of info to realise they were misreading their own feelings due to decades of amatonormative/heteronormative/binarist/toxic masculine brainwashing.

(I still don't like the term "toxic masculine" because I really want a term where we have more room to redefine "masculine" as decidedly masculine but wholly without the toxic stuff that's so married to "manliness," room to reject that stuff and revision manliness, but whatever)

THE REASON OLDER GENERATIONS DON'T HAVE THIS STUFF IS NOT BECAUSE YOU'RE INVENTING IT. IT IS BECAUSE OUR TIME DIDN'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT.

Yes, I think it's funny imaging how lost you'd be trying to use an 8-track player, or a library card catalogue actually made of index cards.

And had I not miscarried in December 2003 and had a sixteen year old, I'd have had them set up the internet TV device I got instead of three hours barely restraining myself from breaking it into pieces just like I was the only one who was able to figure out how to set the VCR clock and VCR+ timers when we got one when I was young. Which my difficulty with this stuff is more like a Boomer than an Xer. Most of my peers are pretty savvy. Sometimes my friends can tele-help me.

And I think new music,which I define as post-Y2K, stinks.

So I'm not hip and new. Plenty about me is just like your parents.

But no, you aren't making this up. And you're informing a lot of us. You're waking us up to how truly diverse humanity is. You're waking some of us up to who we really are.

And as for those of you who have crummy and even Karen parents, two things:

A. The Latino kids took me and the other Asian in in high school. There aren't many Asians in FL. (The "Another Chinese Family" bit on Fresh Off The Boat is so real) There are definitely some crummy Xers out there, and that's been true all along. There was even a right-wing youth org called "young republicans." There were Regean-loving racist queerphobes all along. They made my life miserable in high school, too.

B. There are also others like me that believe in you. That actually need you. You're bringing *back* a diversity that was smothered by colonial Europe. Historical precedent is actually on your side.

Thank you. I mean it. You're doing good, you're legit, and there are a lot of us who believe in you, too.

[clevercatchphrase]

2019 year in review

So… The 2010’s are almost over. Huh. What a decade it’s been. Hard to comprehend how much has changed in 10 years. I can barely believe that I was in high school at the beginning of this decade, and now I’m a college graduate with 2 degrees who’s been working at the same job for the last 3 years. But trying to summarize the past 10 years in a single post is a good way to give myself an existential crisis, so let’s not do that! Instead, let’s just focus on 2019 because there has been more than enough shit that’s happened to me in this year to talk about.

PART 1 OF 2: 2019 AND 2020 GOALS AND RESOLUTIONS

Huh, looking back through my archives, I apparently didn’t make a tumblr post about my goals this year. I definitely had some, though. Lemme list ‘em off real quick, and then we’ll go through them point by point.

1)      Pay off all my student loans 2)      Finish some song comics 3)      Make art for my Redbubble account 4)      Finish the first rough draft/script of a game I wanted to make 5)      Practice ASL 6)      Sew some stuffed animals 7)      Finish some fan fictions 8)      Work on Ghost Switch 9)      AMVs 10)   Do some original writing 11)   Make illustrations for my fan fictions

Okay, first off, the student loans. I was actually SO CLOSE to successfully completing this one bUT THEN MY CAR HAD TO BE A WHINEY PISS BABY AND HAVE ITS ALTERNATOR DIE ON ME WHILE I WAS ON THE HIGHWAY AND THEN A BLOW OUT THREE WEEKS LATER.

GOD, if I had to summarize this year in two words, for me it would be “Car troubles”. I swear I spent more on auto repair in the first third of this year than I ever have just freakin’ OWNING a car. All four of my tires had to be replaced, my alternator failed and my car literally just SHUT OFF while I was driving, and I was barely able to coast into a gas station. Both my front breaks and rear breaks were worn down the metal and I only learned this when my car was barely able to stop after I had to slam the petal down full force!  I went in for an oil change, and they found some problems and then I didn’t get my car back for three days! I don’t even like owning a car! I hate driving! I hate my country’s refusal to provide universal, free public transportation! I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!

Oh-kay… number 2. Finish some song comics. I didn’t finish any. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t work on them. I have made tiny progress, but that’s certainly better than no progress. One of these song comics I hope to be realizes is going to be a collab with one of my friends. It’ll be a long-time coming as it’s pretty low priority for the both of us, but if anyone else out there was disappointed with KH3’s ending, we’re gonna have ya’ covered… With SONG!

3. Make some redbubble art. I actually did this one! Not in the way I expected, but I added (technically) 3 new designs to my redbubble in the middle of the year. If you like butterflies and dragons, I got some product for you~!

Number 4, finish a script for a game I want to make. I… thought about this. I thought about this a lot, but I never put pen to paper, so… oops. It almost happened! I debated making this my main writing project for NaNoWriMo this year, but ended up having more inspiration for another story. Maybe next year? (god, I hope not. I don’t want to wait a full year just to write something)

Number 5, practice ASL. I just straight up didn’t do this and I only have myself to blame. Still keepin’ up that Danish Duolingo streak, though. 4 years going strong and not a day missed yet.

Number 6, sew some stuffed animals. Again, another one I just straight up didn’t do, but I have an excuse of trying to save money while my car crashed and burned in every other sense except literal this year. Hopefully 2020 will be different. I’ll definitely be able to pay off this last loan within the first half of 2020, and then I can start saving for whatever I want to buy.

Finish some fan fictions was number 7, and I did this! Well, I only finished, 1, but it was a story I’ve been working on for over 3 years, and it came out to over 200 THOUSAND words long, which is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m quite proud of myself. Now that the big story is out of the way, and I’ve gotten into a good rhythm of working on Ghost Switch, maybe I can squeeze in some short writing sessions more frequently. (either that, or just wait for my car to break down again and then go on a writing spree in a pepboys. The lord and the fan fic discord know that’s solely why I finished my other fic this year)

Speaking of Ghost Switch, working on it was a goal this year too, and I did that! I kept it up all year and took a vacation in November and it was wonderful. While the major plot points have been in place since before I started drawing, I still need to script each arc beyond Snowdin, but hey, by the time we get there, it’ll be 2022 so I got time. (Note, don’t do this, kids. Script your stories and comics thoroughly before publishing. The road I’m on is paved with misery and pain and it will only end in tears unless I change lanes soon)

Number 9, amvs. Do people make AMVs anymore? Idk… the last one I made was... Jesus, 5 years ago? (it was a gravity falls/fall out boy crossover, if you were curious) I’ve been wanting to do 2 more for just as long, but in order for me to do that, I’d have to spend time re-watching the shows to find the footage, and then actually edit them together, and I just don’t…. feel like it. Maybe someday, but not any day soon.

10; do some original writing. I did this! For nanowrimo! I wrote the first draft of some original fiction I’ve been planning for a year or two now and it completely sucks! But it’s on paper now and I’m happy. Will I revise and edit it? Sure, but not for a while. I want to let it sit and forget about it and look at it with new eyes months from now so I can be sure I can make it better when time comes to rewrite.

11, make illustrations for my fan fics. Now that You Monster is done, I want to go back and add pictures to it. I didn’t do any this year, but I did keep a list of scenes I wanted to draw, so I have plenty of ideas to do as warm up sketches next year~ I kinda want to stream them~

So, that was 11 goals, and I successfully fulfilled 4 of them! That’s! Not a very good ratio… QmQ So, goals for 2020. Some I’m gonna keep from this year, some I’m gonna drop and some I’m gonna add. In short I would like to,

1)      Finish paying off that last student loan 2)      Put more stuff on my redbubble 3)      Illustrate my own fan fics 4)      Sew at least one stuffed animal 5)      Make an enamel pin 6)      Read one new book a month 7)      Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic 8)      Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make 9)      Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch 10)   Boost my patreon

Most of these I think are pretty self-explanitory, but I’ll go into detail just a bit because I’m on a roll and typing my thoughts helps me feel less alone in the middle of the night when you’re super tired and you know you should probably go to sleep, but the toddler in you is throwing a tantrum and doesn’t wanna go to sleep just yet, but you can’t fight the progression of time either way.

Number 1- I should be able to reach this goal by the end of March. End of June at the absolute latest. Once that goal is met, my secret new year’s resolution will be unlocked as well!

Number 2- I want to put more art of my OCs on redbubble. These OCs are tied to the game I want to make. There’s already some art of them up there, but I want at least one piece for each character.

Number 3- Mostly for You Monster. Embrace the cardinal rule of fan fic and apply it to fan art. If you want to read about see art about certain ideas, scenarios, or what-ifs, you gotta make it yourself.

Number 4- I have 3 potential ideas to sew. One is definitely leagues easier than the other two and will probably be chosen if/when I have the time and materials.

Number 5- This year I got really, REALLY into the idea of making enamel pins. Unfortunately it’s a pretty big investment (like, $350 to make 100 pins you  might not even sell). If this happens, it’ll probably be towards the end of the year, and if I get enough interest. I’m currently torn between making an original enamel pin and one based off Undertale. We’ll just have to see where this goes.

Number 6- Back in 2018 when I paid off one of my many student loans, I rewarded myself by spending over 200 dollars in used books. All these books had a theme; they were focused on dragons because I have a problem. I have not yet read a single one of these books I have bought, and I would like to fix that. I have, like, 20 unread dragon books, and even if I only read 12 out of 20, I would consider that an amazing accomplishment and money well spent.

Number 7- I currently have about 8 different WIPs I could work on. (well, I don’t know if I can even call them wips. More like, a general idea and a title written down.) I want to build good writing habits, and if I can write just 200 words a day, hell, even 200 words a week and just one of my 8 stories done, I would consider this goal met.

Number 8- I’m torn between making my game in unity or ren’py. I know jack shit about both. Ren’py is more user friendly, but unity will allow me more customization. (Lol, can you guess what kind of game I want to make yet?)

Number  9- I really just want the full story to be done and written incase anything goes horribly terribly wrong in my life and I find myself unable to continue making ghost switch in comic form. Then at least I can finish the story by other means, you know?

Number 10- It always surprises me every month when I get that patreon email saying I got paid. Sure, I don’t even make double digits on it, but it still awes me enough to know that people out there like my work enough to throw me a tip. I can’t thank my patrons enough for supporting me and I hope to one day be in such a good place I can update my comic/song comics/writing frequently enough without need for goals or milestones. But until that magical day arrives, money is always a great incentive for anything, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 ALRIGHT. PART 2 OF 2: SHIT THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN 2019

Cheesus crust what a year. This year started off great! Back in late January Kingdom Hearts 3 FINALLY released, and let me tell you a little story. Back in the summer of 2006 I was a 13 year old middle schooler with no way of making money other than by doing house hold chores at a rate of 25 cents a task. A few weeks ago, I had a sleep over at a friend’s house and they let me play this weird game called “Kingdom Hearts” and god, I was instantly hooked on it. That summer, I did over 800 chores, enough to earn myself 200$ and buy myself a playstation 2 (just in time for the ps3 to come out, gg me) The only games I had for the ps2 were KH1, 2, Re:CoM and Okami, and I beat them all… except Okami. Miffed that the PS3 wouldn’t allow for backwards compatibility, little 13-year-old me made a promise. I looked myself in the mirror and said “I will not buy the next playstation console until KH3 comes out, AND BOY that was probably a good choice for me to make with my level of gaming. I’m even less of a casual gamer than the average casual gamer, but I have been waiting 13 years for this piece of closure, and I even told my friends and family that “the day Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out is the day I will buy a playstation 4”. My dad apparently thought this was the funniest shit, because he literally took the day off from work that Friday to drive me on base to get the game and console (he thought it would be less crowded than a regular walmart, I suppose). I paid $400 on a ps4 pro while he bought me the game. Again, I have an impecible sense of timing seeing as the PS5 is now right on the horrizion, but just like before, I’m not buying a new console until the next KH game is released. See you in 2045, sony~. While I was at the gamestop on base, I also picked up Okami HD and The Last Guardian. For all of February and even early March, I took my time playing through KH3. And…! It was the best disappointment I’ve ever played. After a month away from gaming, I started The Last Guardian and finished it in a couple weeks. I love trico and would die for him, but trying to get 100% completion on that game is udder insanity. Okami, HD, however… again after a month break after finishing TLG, I started replaying Okami. I think I had only managed to get about halfway through the game before I just… stopped playing it on my ps2 version. I am currently SO CLOSE to getting a 100% on the ps4 version. In fact, I’ve beaten the game. I only (techinically) need 2 more trophies to be done; 1st, escape the water dragon without being eaten, 2nd, I need to beat that dumb stupid race with Kai, in order to get the last bead on my rosary, as well as the top dog trophy. I hate her so much. I hate this race so much. It’s awful and bad.

Flash forward to December! Earlier this month I was at Barnes and Noble, buying myself a planner for 2020. I exit the store and notice that there’s a gamestop across the street. For shits and giggles I go inside to look at their game selection, and I find KH 1.5 and 2.5. Now, my PS2 died a few years back (it just won’t read my discs anymore, I don’t know why) and I haven’t been able to replay any of my other kingdom hearts games since. If you had seen me the day I finished kingdom hearts 3, after the ending credits rolled, you would have heard me say “Man…. I wish I could play kingdom hearts 2 again”. AND NOW I CAN, ALONG WITH BBS which I had never even played yet, but knew the story of. I’ve restarted playing kh1, and I was so happy to hear that familiar music when I booted the game up for the first time. While at the game stop, I also picked up Rime and Tearaway, two games that had looked interesting to me. At the time of writing, I’ve finished Rime and am 25% done with tearaway. Rime was…. An interesting experience. I learned about it through Jacksepticeye’s channel a couple years back and thought the art style was enticing. For a super casual gamer like me, I found the puzzles just the right level of challenging and exploring was a blast! The music gave me VERY strong Princes Mononoke vibes, but the overall story left something to be desired. Overall I had fun, and enjoyed completing this game to 100%. Now for tearaway. Can I just say this game is super fucking adorable? I know the original was on the ps vita and the gameplay there was arguably more diverse and imaginative, but this game is just so fucking cute I don’t care?? ALSO, this game’s sound track is ABSOLUTELY incredible and I’ve only heard the first fourth of it! Listen to The Orchards, Pig Riding, and Gibbet Hill Pilgrimage for a taste of their wonderful beats and fantastic use of string and woodwinds! God, I’m so excited to get some more games in 2020. I’m proud to say I currently own more ps4 games than I ever did with my ps2 (and now the majority AREN’T Kingdom Hearts titles!), and I’m still hoping to play Journey, The Witness, and Abzu before everything becomes ps5.

What else happened to me this year. Oh, I went to a doctor for, like, the first time in seven years. I also had my blood drawn for the first time ever, and the nurse said the most disturbing thing to me while she did it. Now, whenever I get shots, I refuse to look. I did that here. So she thought it would be appropriate to say to me “Can you feel your blood leaving your body?” Lady… You can clearly see I am uncomfortable with what is happening here. Why, of all the things you could say, did you choose to say that. Unfortunately, while my doctor is nice, she keeps wanting to run tests on me, that I just cannot afford with my current salary, and my monthly insurance is about to go up to 200$ a month, so I’ve cancelled my next appointment with them, and don’t plan to go back until it’s absolutely necessary. Capitalism is fun, guys. Preventative healthcare is for wusses.

I started going to a chiropractor on a monthly basis. Story time- I don’t know when it started, but sometime late last November I began to notice that I had a headache that just... wasn’t... going away? And each day it was starting to get a little worse. It made it hard for me to find a comfortable position to sleep, it made it hard for me to be in bright areas or move fast. So I said to myself “Okay, if this headache persist through the month of december, then something is proooobably wrong and I should go see someone about it. And hoo-boy were thing wrong with me. By the time this January rolled around, I couldn’t even stay on my feet for more than a few hours without it physically hurting to just BREATHE. So I started going to this chain called The Joint (A+ name, I know). THey aksed me “How are you doing?” I said “I’m in pain” and they said “We can help fix that!”. I’ve only been to a chiropractor once before in my life a few years back after my freshmen year of college because I began to notice my hips weren’t able to support me? LIke, I would lie on my back, and I couldn’t push my hips up when my feet were flat on the floor. I also couldn’t climb anything steep, because my legs just couldn’t push me up if my knee had to bend more than 90 degrees when I lifted my leg up. (Turned out both my hips were apparently out of place). This time only one of my hips were out of place (which they fixed. they said one of my legs was an inch “longer” than the other because I had been leaning all my weight on one leg when I stand). But two of my ribs were apparently “Stuck” which was why it was hurting for me to just breathe, and one of my shoulders was missaligned too, causing one of my trap muscles to constantly be streched, which was pulling on my skull, and causing the headache. Anyway, after they popped all my bones back into place, I still felt terrible, but by god, that night was the first time in weeks I was able to sleep without a migrane. A chiropractor can’t magically heal your arthritis, or fibro, but I definately think they have merit to keeping your posture good and helping your body with things like circulation. 10 outa 10, would recomend. It’s all the fun of getting your neck snapped without the dying!

Earlier this month I got together with two of my friends and we baked Christmas cookies. It was a lot of fun, as well as a great learning experience. A member of my family has a gluten allergy, so we used rice flour for most of the cookies. We learned this is a bad idea! The cookies will just fall apart! A few member’s in one of the friend’s family have nut allergies. Other friend and I knew this and were careful to avoid cookie recipes with nuts, bUT THEN COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT ALMOND MILK AND ALMOND EXTRACT COUNT AS NUT. IN FACT, ALMOND EXTRACT IS PURE CONCENTRATED NUT JUICE AND WE FELT SO BAD FOR ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY POISONING THE FAMILY.

Earlier this year me and these same friends took a field trip to Hobby Lobby and just dicked around the store for a couple of hours. It was super fun, 11 outa 10, would recommend, a great date idea for your artsy S.O.

Back in May I went to a wedding for the first time in my life. (well, not true, but the first one I could remember) we left at 5am, drove 5 hours to get there, hung out at a zoo and spent the night in a la quinta before the wedding day. I slept on the bathroom floor because my mom was snoring too loud in the main room and keeping me awake, and the rest of the day was just spent me trying to keep myself together because I was pissed off and tired.

Other than all of that, nothing really major happened to me this year. I guess one more thing I’ve tried to do this year is started the process of breaking certain internet addictions so I can use my free time for more personal projects. Seriously, I found myself watching way too much youtube and following blogs that didn’t even make me happy. I had a personal intervention with myself where I sat down and asked myself, “why do you watch these videos and youtubers? Why do you follow these blogs? Do you really enjoy their content? Do you really care? If you stopped watching/following them, would you even notice?” After critically thinking it over, I’ve found myself unfollowing several channels and blogs and suddenly I feel so much happier. I thought I would miss it, but I realized I didn’t really care if I saw their content or not. I wasn’t missing much. And now I feel like I have more time to draw, read and write. If you think you spend too much time consuming and not enough time creating, I suggest you try and de-clutter your internet habits as well. It’s done wonders to un-fuck my headspace.

And… well, that about sums up my year. How are your holidays going? Anything fun, exciting, dramatic happen to you this year? I hope your new year is warm and safe! Good night, everybody!

[coreytravelogue]

Vancouver, BC - August 1, 2020

Here we are in August already in a summer that came later here in Vancouver but no less hot and stuffy. I am sitting in a sweat box writing this because I feel like today is as good of a day as any to post something on my travelogue though I am doing anything but.

August has always been a transition month for me for most of my life. As a kid August was often the month me and my parents went on a vacation on whether it was to Disneyland, Newfoundland, Florida, Ottawa or British Columbia. August always meant the end fo summer for me or the end of freedom which meant school was coming soon which often happened during the last day of the month. Fiscal year for businesses end around March, end of the year for most normally is at the end of December but for me year ends always feel like they are at the end of August. Last year I left for Europe at the end of August, 2 years ago I left for Australia, 6 years ago I left for Europe of the first time, 14 years ago I graduated fro Vancouver Film School but it was 15 years ago that I left my hometown of Fort McMurray for to move to Vancouver. It’s this that I wish to talk about today.

The 15th anniversary is on the 8th I believe but I feel as thought today is as good of a day as any to talk about it. Moving away from home is something I am sure most people remember as though it was yesterday, for me it does feel like 15 years, maybe sooner but still a long time ago simply because so much has changed for from that time to now. I am pretty sure I have talked about all of this before but t his si my blog and this blog is more for me than for anyone else.

In terms of moving away from home one could say I was probably late in that regard. I graduated from high school in 2002. During that time I was still undecided as to what I wanted to do with my life. Part of me still wanted to be a pro wrestler but that dream was getting dangerously close to dying as my love for film and video editing was growing. I knew high school life was not over for me though. I graduated easily but not with grades that could get me anywhere, anywhere that I wanted to go anyway. I wanted to go to Nait or Sait to study film there but my English grades were not good enough. So I decided to upgrade my English marks as well as some sciences while I worked.

It makes the most sense to stay at home, so much that it wasn’t even a question really. Fort Mmcurray was very expensive to live. At this point it was all about saving money and preparing for where I was going to go, wherever that would be. By 2003 I improved my English marks and tried applying to Nait and Sait again but my marks were still not good enough for them. I worked at McMurray TV at this time and while I liked working for them the hours were inconsistent and the pay was practically minimum wage. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save enough money to leave working there so in the summer of 2003 I took a second job at the Safeway Gas Bar.

By this time I was losing friends left right and center, they were either moving away, moving on or we would having falling outs with each other. 2003 was a year where I lost most of my friends by the end of it and 2004 wasn’t that much better. In fact 2004 come to think of it was a pretty shitty year for me though the music was great. By this point I was ready and willing to have a fist fight with one of my childhood friends over losing a computer game. I was also burning the candle at both ends for the most part. If I wasn’t working at the gas station dealing with angry Albertans who only wanted to blame me for high gas prices and for whatever shit was bothering them in their lives I was working for peanuts at McMurray TV but at least there I could work my ass off but not have to deal with assholes while listening to my music and what not. I usually did not have days off and if I did they were spent working on AMVs, watching movies or playing video games.

While I have come to at times regret moving to Vancouver the more I think about how I was back in even 2004 I needed to leave Fort McMurray, if I didn’t I probably would have had a nervous breakdown or do something that would have involved me getting fired because I would have inevitably got in a fight with a customer over their bullshit and my lack of being able to take it. With no friends and no love in my life or anyone really AMVs were the only place I could pour myself into, it was my therapy but by the end of 2004 it wasn’t enough. My Alberta anger was getting so bad that I would break my PS2 controller because of how angry I would get at losing to a computer.

I also decided to try one more time at upgrading my English in 2004 and while I improved it Sait and Nait raised the required again making it impossible for me to be accepted again. I came to realize I didn’t have good enough marks to get into a academic film school, a school that cares more about grades that is.

2005 began and at this point it was not uncommon for me to be crying myself to sleep hating myself, everyone and everything. I was begging to any imaginary god that would listen to bring back the only friend I felt I had left which was RJ. Call it a coincidence but the night I wished it I got a call from him telling me he was moving back to Fort Mac for awhile and was looking for a place to stay. Without asking my parents I said yes. From January to May he stayed with us rent free, thankfully my parents never opposed it. In fact I think they were thankful for it. I tried my best to keep my demons from my parents but they knew I had issues, they knew I was having a hard time. They just didn’t know how to help me which would be a common theme for most of my life if not all of my life. My mood went from angry and miserable to calm and happyish.

From January to May of 2005 would be the happiest times of my young life at that point, living with my best friend whom I could hang out with every night provided me with comfort and company I hadn’t had in years. It was not without its red flags, I came to find out my friend had a drinking problem that I would inherit years later. The more I think about it it must not have been that fun for him living at my house. He was a year older than me was back living in a city he hated working at McDonald’s sleeping on his friend’s sofa bed. His plan was always to save up money again and leave and that he did in May, we would not really speak to each other a little over a year. Not because we didn’t want to but....maybe I will get to that later.

I will probably remember the day he left for as long as I live, I can’t remember the exact day in May but I remember it vividly. It was a morning shift, Rj and a Adam who was also one of my friends though not quite as much of one came in to fuel up and leave. Adam came in to say good bye and fuel up while Rj didn’t come to say goodbye. It hurt but it was also a busy day so I had no time to really dwell on it. By the time I got home I was tired. I sat down on my computer chair and noticed that for the first time in months the basement was quiet. For the past five months I got so used to looking to the right of me and noticing RJ either playing video games, sleeping in or just doing something in general. Now there was no one there but a couch finally folded up in place and a empty space where he used to be. I never felt more lonely than I did at that moment at least at that part of my life.

It was then I realized that I needed to leave Fort McMurray or the city was surely going to kill me, not to long after even the smallest things was starting to piss me off again. I decided that I needed to go somewhere that could teach me film. If I could not do it in Alberta maybe British Columbia would be the ticket.

I had been to British Columbia more than a few times in my life but most of the times that I did we all in the early 90s and they were all in the Vernon/Kelowna so my experience in BC was limited and even then outdated.

However there were two options for film schools in Vancouver at that time; Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Film School. After being burned by Nait and Sait so many times I gave up on the thought of a academic film school. VFS was a private school that only really cared if you could pay for it more than how good your marks were. My parents saved a nest egg for me since I was a child for school which they used for this.

I can’t help but feel bad for using that next egg for this as you can tell by now I never got anywhere in my film career, I never even really had one thoug not for the lack of making an attempt. Me and my dad went to a seminar they put up in Edmonton which impressed both of us and made us confident that I could get a good education there. Boy were were hoodwinked.

Look I have spent way too much time harbouring bad vibes for what would happen from August of 2005 to August 2006 but the more I think of it with 15 years of hindsight behind me I set myself up for failure before I even arrived for my first day of film school.

The day I left Fort Mac is another day I remember vividly at least the the part of leaving. I said goodbye to our dogs Kelly and a Prince feeling I would see them during Christmas, we went to the Gas Bar where I worked for the last two years to fuel up and said goodbye to a girl I had a crush on but felt that she was so far out of my league it wasn’t worth trying. I would never forget how nice she used to be to me when I worked there, at that time of my life she was one of the few women around me that did treat me like I was a monster or some creep. When I came back for Christmas I passed by her for the final time and she invited me out to eat and I never went with her. That would be the first of many regrets I would have in the next 10 years involving women.

So we drove to Calgary and spent a night there then headed straight to Salmon Arm where my cousin Pam was to be married. I hadn’t seen Pam since the early 90s so seeing her married felt surreal. However not even 3 hours passing the border we get a call from one of my uncles who’s as taking care of Prince to tell my dad that he lost him and that he was gone.

For as angry and miserable as I was I should say I did have one friend who was always there for me during those dark points and that was my dog Prince. Prince was like the brother I never had, the one person I could cry my eyes to and not feel judged and shamed for doing it in front of. The more I think about it dogs have seen me cry and break down fairly often. I loved Prince, I told my dad that my uncle could not be relied upon to take care of him and this confirmed it. I remember finding out about this and crying all the way to Salmon Arm. From that point and for the next two years I would hate my dad’s guts for not listening to me and I made it known any time I could as any Scorpio would to twist the knife on him and remind him of his fuck up and how much I hated him for it, he knew it and from that point one he never let any family member take care of our dogs while we were gone ever again however it didn’t matter to me because Prince was my dog and I haven’t had a dog of my own ever since. First day in BC and already experienced my first traumatic event, it would not be the last.

My year in film school could only be compared to my own version of going to my own Vietnam War, it was that traumatic for me it would dictate and basically fuck up residuals for the next 9 years ruining my relationships friends, mainly and women possibly interested women all along the way.

I am not going to go into much detail of that year because it was only one year in 15 that I have lived here and I no longer want that part of my life define me but to ignore it would be omitting a important part of my life no matter how bad it was.

I remember the day I arrived Vancouver again.....vividly. I have been through big cities many times as a kid and as a teenager but it was always on vacation. Vancouver was the first city I feel I truly experienced as an adult for the most part on my own. We drove in and in my dad’s tradition of being in big cities we got lost but this time it wasn’t entirely his fault it was a easy mistake to make. We finally made it o the house I would spend the first four years of my life in. You couldn’t have asked for a better place to stay to tell you the truth. It had a amazing view of Playland (right across the highway from it actually), the rent was affordable for the most part. Well it would be very affordable for today’s Vancouver but this was before the city became too expensive to live in. My landlord was a cool guy who never had a problem with me butt hen I can’t imagine I ever really gave him a problem. I was always quiet, paid my rent on time and never caused any serious trouble. The only knock would be that I would use his drum kit whenever I knew he and everyone in the house was gone which wasn’t often.

Once we dropped everything off we drove to downtown via Hasting Street and that is when we saw something that disturbed us, a place I would basically call cracktown, located on the easy side of downtown Vancouver which sadly in the last 15 years has never really changed. I heard of this area before and was warned about it, when I was still in high school I was shown a documentary about drug abuse on the downtown east side which was enough to scare anyone into not wanting to get like that but seeing it up close was unsettling. We stayed at a hotel for the weekend as I did orientation at VFS and me and my mom would explore a good. Portion of downtown Vancouver. An exercise that was good for me because I would be spending a great deal of time in downtown Vancouver for at least half of my time here.

I was hoping Vancouver would be a new start for me, a new beginning where I would make new friends, finally find a girlfriend, lose my virginity and begin a career either as a film maker or at least a video editor. None of that really happened.

Thus is where I feel like I should talk about how I set myself up for failure but this is all in hindsight. The more I think of it now this was all bound to happen and maybe needed to happen for me to grow into who I am not though no perfect much more of a man and emotionally stable than I was then because for all intensive purposes I was emotionally unstable, I was ticking time bomb ready and looking for someone to explode on.

I loved a extremely sheltered life up to this point, I never had to worry about rent, making my own food though I knew how to, I never knew how to talk to girls let alone socialize. In school I always just kept to myself and did my work as hard as I could and hoped for the best. I was never educated in living life away from my parents. Now here I was in a city I knew nothing about, completely alone and without much of a financial safety net (though I knew my parents would come and save if I called but I never did) and desperately lonely.

I never had a girlfriend before, to tell you the truth my plan was never to go after girls in school my plan was as it should have bee. Get an education and get into making movies but I found myself falling in love with a girl named Katherine. My obsession with her basically destroyed any chance I had at making a decent chance at making something of film school because I spent most if not all of it obsessed with her and trying to “win her over”. I can tell. You many traumatic stories but I feel more like a piece of shit about them where as if I spoke of this prior to Europe I would still try to swing it in a way that it was her who hurt me and not myself but at the end of the day I made my life a living hell and I pinned my future happiness on someone who didn’t ask to be put on a pedestal, who didn’t deserve the grief and stress I put on her, someone who really did want to be my friend but me reeking of such a concentrated dose of toxic masculinity and white male privilege would refuse to see her as a friend and only as a possible love interest.

When I look back on that year I could have been so much more productive than I was, that being said I wasn’t very skilled or I should say I don’t think my set of skills would have been appreciated. I feel fact I should have never have went to VFS but then that is hindsight. How would I have known.

It could be so easy for me to say I wish I had stayed in Fort Mac an extra year till I found out about YouTube and learned film making there.then I would have money to o make my own film and the means to do it there but again I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Fort McMurray I doubt I would have lasted another year. The fact that when I moved to a Vancouver and happening lay messed up my own life in a Vancouver basically solidifies that my emotional nosedive was inevitable and bound to happen.

If I could have went back in time to talk to 20 year old me I probably would have told him to instead travel but tot ell you the truth 20 year old me had no interest in travel at that time so I doubt a trip to Europe would have been fruitful for him, maybe to Japan but who knows.

August 2005 to August 2006 was a nightmare year for me where I would cling to any kind of hope to keep my alive and it just seemed like everything just wasn’t working out no matter how hard I tried. It was from this year that I also started drinking more and got into hockey. Before this time I had no interest in drinking I mean I did drink and get drunk no and then but if I got drunk it was e other once a month to once every 3 months. As for hockey I could care less about hockey unless I was playing it on the computer.

I got into being a Oilers fan basically out of a bet I made for myself. I remembered being at a bar with Kat and two other strangers. I was depressed as fuck hoping she could save me from it but she couldn’t and I can’t blame her. I feel like shit for forcing her to be responsible for my salvation but I remember her bringing up hockey. She was a always fan, another guy a Habs fan, the other I can’t remember who but another Canadian team. She asked me what team I cheered for. I said the Oilers only because it was the only team I had any sort of care for but to say I was a fan would be seriously stretching it. She said who knows maybe my team will win the Stanley Cup. It was there that I said to myself the chances of them winning the cup was the same chances of getting her to love someone like me. Coincidentally enough that was the year of the Oilers last great cup run so.....yeah all a desperate and emotionally unstable person needed to continue to peruse a woman who only wanted me be my friend. Let’s just say the aftermath of the Oilers losing to the Hurricanes is very comparable to what inevitably happened to me and Kat. A trauma that would stick with me for the next 9 years and come close to killing me on more than one occasion.

So I graduated, I spent that entire fall applying to work any film set I could at the time figuring it would be so easy because for that year I was at film school film sets would basically park guys in front of our door all the time poaching many of us to come and work for a night or two but by the time we graduated the Canadian dollar was going up and the film industry was starting to dry up in Vancouver. I applied everywhere I could but I never got a call from anyone. I had one chance at working on a film set but it was on a “date” or what I thought was a date. I remember walking past the set and seeing the guys I went tos chocolate with there and the looks on their faces was enough o convince me it wasn’t worth going the route they did. One of them had such a look of disappointment on his face the look of “I just spent 30 K just to watch wires.”

I would try to look for work still but I never got anywhere with it, I would say only a quarter of our class got somewhere in their film careers maybe more but definitely not more than half, if anything only a third.

I only have myself to blame for the failure of film career I never had. I wanted to make my own film and decided that I would just save up money in order to do it but by the time I saved up enough money to where I could have probably done it the love and desire of making a movie is 2014 was more or less gone.

When it was obvious that I could not find film work I worked at HMV for two Christmas’s and I started working at Petcetera and the Old Spaghetti Factory at the beginning of 2007. I again was burning the candle at both ends, desperate to make a buck to make my movie all while I was still clinically depressed and woefully lonely. I only had one friend who was Tyler who was the first person I truly me in Vancouver and is someone who is still my friend to this day though we rarely hang out anymore. If I did not have him in my life to at least just be there I would have probably been dead by now and that is the truth.

2007 was another very rough year in my life. I was working two jobs a day working basically over 60 hours a week from February to August (again), I lost the other dog that was apart of a good portion of my life in Kelly and I was continuing to basically fail finding a girlfriend dogging women who only wanted to me and giving up too soon one women who could have went out with me. I quit both of my jobs in order to work on my short film only to find out that all the money I spent would have been a drop in the bucket and that I needed more money that what I had, 3 times more. Plus everyone I asked to help me either said no or just never returned my calls. Within one month I went back to work at the pet store, worked HMV for another Christmas only to quit the pet store at the end of the year and not be hired by back by the other. It was also by the end of the 2007 that I made my first true suicide attempt, an attempt that I am already starting to feel the effects of now.

I know what you are thinking, my god Corey why didn’t you just leave Vancouver if all it was doing was making you miserable and why are you tell me such a sad fucking sorry, surely there is a happy ending to all this? Very good questions.

Why did I not leave Vancouver? Well the question then is the same as it is now. Where the fuck should I go? You have to understand BC was and still is biggest city for film in Canada. I could have went to Ontario but that would cost money that I didn’t entirely have and I wasn’t entirely sold on leaving. I didn’t want to go back to Alberta because I felt like if I went back it would have been admitting failure also the film industry was and is barely there. Then much like now the only jobs in Alberta are either in the oil industry or to serve the oil industry. I could have decided to just work abroad and you know what they would have and should have been a good idea. I would have been more open to this idea by this time but again I didn’t have that much money and the travel bug had no bite me yet.

Is there a happy ending to all this? Well I am alive now aren’t I and I seem to at least have my head on straight despite how much I enjoy referring tot he past. Well I guess I am one of those people who feels to rule the future you must conquer your past, I feel as though I conquered it for the most part it only took all my 20s to do it.

With that being said my life would start to slightly look up. Thanks to Tyler I was able to get a job at Electrionic Arts in 2008 a job that would provide me with financial stability for the next 6 years. It was not without its own forms of stress but for all intensive purposes I can’t really say much bad about EA; though they paid me peanuts I got good dental and health benefits, I was able to take December’s off to be with my parents, save money like crazy (though I lived on peanut butter and crackers for most of it in order to do so) I had more stability. I just stayed there for too long and that is more on me than them.

In 2009 I had to leave my place of residence because my landlord was ready to start a family and was tired of having room mates though honestly up to this point is as pretty lucky in the room mate department. I moved a few blocks up the road and lived with a older lady and a German man who would not stop bragging about German beer. I was a cider guy at this point and had no interest in beer in general much less German beer (yet).

By this time my alcohol consumption had steady increased to where it is sort of today where I would basically get drunke very weekend but from 2008-11 was probably the most calm time of my life. I had become friends with the landlord and we would have movie nights every Friday enjoying pizza, cider and art movies. I was still failing in my love life at this time but it wasn’t so bad at this time as I was all about writing, watching movies and saving money. I was still reeking of toxic white male priviledge and my land lord tried to get me out of it as she was worried about me however she had her own stresses in her life which led her to move out of the house. By early 2011 I either had the choice of becoming the land lord where the only tenants was a ex convinct and the other was a asshole who always tried to take advance of previous landlord by dodging rent whenever he could. I had enough stress in my life and decided to get my own appartment for the first time in my life near Metrotown.

2011-13 I lived alone for the first time and while it was painfully lonely and horrifically expensive I enjoyed the privacy. Since I no longer had someone to hang out with on Friday nights, online dating was a failure and nothing was changing I decided to go out every Friday night and try to change my luck. While I have many stories to tell long story short I failed all of the time. I also decided to try and upgrade my high school diploma again focusing on sciences. It was around this time that I had beer that I liked for the very first time. It was Okanagan Spring’s Summer Wiezen. I started having it in my head to maybe be a brewmaster. I didn’t care about beer that much but the industry was starting to boom and I was starting to like what was coming out of it but I was still a cider guy for the most part.

In 2011 was when I also made my second suicide attempt and failed. It was embarrassing and slightly eye opening, I didn’t learn much from it but I was starting o learn that things needed to change because the third suicide attempt may be the last one.

Living even in a studio apartment was way too expensive for myself and I decided to move into where I live right now in 2013. It was dirt cheap and run down but it provided me a perfect back drop to save a considerable amount of money o make my film or do something.

At around age 23 I made a promised to myself that I had to accomplish something before I turned 30. At age 28 in 2013 it was looming but I was nowhere closer to doing anything or accomplishing anything that I set out to do.

RJ was turning 30 and like his 25th I went to see him and be there for him though he never was there for me for the last 10 years. Our friendship slowly dissolved after this due to me pursuing his girlfriend because at that point I was still desperate and I felt that our friendship was too one sided and he didn’t care about me so why should I with him. This wound up being another thing that inevitably blew in my face but at least I gain a friend out of it whom is still my friend to this day despite all of the drama.

2014 came and I was now 29 still with nothing to show for it. Lonely and no where closer to beating my demons as I had tried every form of therapy I could. After a trip to Seattle a few years back I became more interested in traveling now than I once was. It was either make a film or travel to Europe and I decided on the later. You know the story of that already.

I think at this point we. Have nearly come full circle as from 2014 and on I have documented my life here. Europe was extremely impactful to me in was that you know yet can’t fathom but I needed time for it to sink in with me. By the time I came back I felt rejuvenated and thought I could get on a saddle now only to fall flat on my ass more than a few times before 2014 ended. I had turned 30 and now I was unemployed, still loveless and much more poorer but at least I had done something no other from my family had done before as of yet.

It was would be in February of 2015 when I had my last true breakdown where the light finally came on. From August 2015 to August 2017 I went back to o school, prior to then I finally met a girl who actually loves me and by the time I graduated I already had a job that was paying twice the amount of was being paid at EA.

In 2018 and 2019 I was travel more than I had for most of my 20s and more happier than I had ever been all things considering.

Now here in 2020 I guess I am at another cross roads. While my living quarters has allowed me to save a considerable amount of money it is not a place I should live in anymore, it is a nearly toxic environment with a shit head room mate who was her before me. The city itself is too expensive to live in and I can’t afford to live in it. I am now sort of being forced out unless I want to make sacrificed in my life to stay her, sacrifices I do not think are worth it.

At this point I have very few if any friends, all the friends I have made have either moved away or moved on (sound familiar). Living here now causes a lot of needless stress. The problem is where the hell do I go from here?

It is funny though for much of the 15 years I have lived here I have hated Vancouver and the Albertan in me tried to find anyway he could to place blame on this city any way I could for all the problems in my life even though at the end of the day I was the harbinger of my own sadness all along. Now at the 15 year mark I actually love being in Vancouver. Is it perfect? Fuck no it is expensive, drives and cyclists are idiots, it barely snows and when it does this city refuses to handle it.

That being said the weather is very mild, people are not angry here or look to take their anger out on you here, the politics lean to the left here the most and the beer is the best in Canada for the most part. Maybe it is Stockholm Syndrome maybe it isn’t but I am used to being here and I can’t entirely see myself being anywhere else right now. For awhile I thought Alberta was a option now that I have career to build but with its politics and the province’s penchant to fuck itself up I am wary of going back there. So where else do I go?

I was born and raised in Alberta but I basically was a baby, child and teen in Fort McMurray, I grew up there. However it was in Vancouver where I became the man I am today. Before I came here I hated myself beyond measure, now while I have have money of self hatred I don’t hate myself entirely anymore. I see someone who was deeply flawed and caused harm to other but mainly to himself in his pursuit of his own truths that never made any sense but I also see someone who learned from his fuck ups and no longer allows them to define him. It is part of the portrait that is me but it is not all of me and. I refuse to let the next 15 years be defined by it either. I will still make mistakes and have many regrets, I can only hope at age 50 I will be a better man then than I am at 35.

In the next couple of weeks I will talk about Australia and Europe. I ain’t ravelling this year due to COVID obviously. It makes me feel so lucky that I got to go to those places to which talking about it feel is the closest I can get to actually being there again anyway.

Anyways this has been the last 15 years in my life. There are many stories that I have not told but that would be a novel’s worth of stories and I feel I have probably tired you out by now I know I am. So here is to the next 15 years wherever I may be at that point. Shazbot nanu nanu.

[clevercatchphrase]

2017 in review, and goals for 2018

If I had to describe 2017 in one word it would be... monotonous. Sure, there were plenty of ups and downs, but for the most part, especially the latter 6 months, I just felt like I was going through the motions, holding my nose to the grind stone, doing work and paying off student loans. 2017 blew by me, and I remember thinking each month passed by with unusal quickness. There's a strange sense of disociation with that, like I wasn't really connected to reality for most of the year, and instead watched it pass me by from a seperate temporal window. In a weird way it may have been a bit of a godsend as well. I hear 2017 was hard for a lot of people, but feeling so disonnected from the year may have protected me and cushioned the blow in a sense.

I lost a family member this year in early june. I knew it was coming ever since january as I hated having to watch them deteriorate and get worse and worse until they finally passed. The three months leading up to it and the three months after were particularly hard and left me feeling unable to write or draw or do anything productive. I still miss them terribly. I always will. But I hope I won't let it immobilize me as much this year as it did last year.

Anyway, Let's review my goals for last year and see what I've accomplished. I’ve a lot to say, so for brevity’s sake I’ve put it all under the cut.

GOALS FOR 2017 1) Finish my 50 billion fan fictions so I can get back to drawing Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. HAHAHAHAHA. The depression I got halfway through the year throughly put a halt on this. I haven't even finished one of the fics I've started in 2016. I got close, seeing as i participated in NaNoWriMo this year to try and force myself to finish, but I still need to revise and edit all that I've written and the motivation is non existant. GOD, I have so many stories too, all of them still undertale fan fiction because I'm still not over that game. I'll list them all when I share my goals for this year later below. 2)Draw in 2 pages of my sketch book each week so I'll finish a sketch book in a year. I was SO CLOSE with this one! I filled out 95 pages! But you know what i discovered in august? I realized that my 100 page sketch book.... was actually 150 pages! Oh well! I drew more this year than I thought i would! Just because i didn't hit 100 pages, doesn't mean I didn't accomplish something! 3) Finish 14 out of the remaining 27 lessons on my duolingo course I went fucking above and beyond with this one. I hit this goal back in may, and then I completely finished up the danish duolingo course by november. I also passed my 1095 day streak which translates to doing duolingo daily for OVER 3 YEARS STRAIGHT. I still practice daily to build my vocabulary, and I know I can't speak it for the life of me, or follow along with fast speakers, but give me a few minutes and I can probably read it for you. Funny how that works, where I can understand danish if it's written out, but ask me to translate from english to danish and I struggle like a butterfly in a tumble dryer. 4) Become passibly fluent in ASL I have this box of 600 ASL flash cards, and this year I practiced two of them a day until I got through the entire box. I certainly learned a bunch of new words but I wouldn't say I was fluent yet. I certainly don't know all the grammar rules yet. I HAVE been able to sign with people at my job, though I do rely heavily on fingerspelling still. Most everyone I talked with seemed to know I was trying and they seemed really excited that I could understand them if they were patient with me. I put more of my focus on Danish last year, but now that I'm done with Danish, maybe I can focust more on ASL. My sister told me about this site similar to duolingo called "memrise" that actually has an ASL course, so you can bet I'll be looking into that. 5) Read the entire dictionary I did this! I kept two spiral note books and wrote down any words I thought were cool or interesting! I haven't gone back and re-read the words I wrote down, but maybe I will this year! It was exhausting. It was weird. I still can't believe I spent about 200 hours last year doing this. 6) Read one new book every month Much like my sketch book goal, I almost completed this one. I kept it up every month until October, and then I just... stopped. I read more than I thought this year, though I ended up usually waiting until the last week of each month to read, and I also cheated by counting the dictionary as one of the things I read (hey, it's a book, ain't it?) I also re-read old books that I know I like, so not entirely 10 new books were read this year. Reading 1 new book a month isn't one of my goals this year, but I hope to read more new stuff reguardless, 7) Actually use the tutorials and references I reblog Seeing as I barely did any digitial art this year, I can't say I did this one. 8) Do more art streams I think my goal was to stream once a month. I clearly didn't do this. I DID stream in 2017, I just didn't tell anyone. Idk why, I just... went live for people to see but didn't let anyone know I did. I also only streamed like... twice? sigh... So... out of the 8 goals I set, I would say I accomplished close to half. I read the dictionary, I finished my danish language course (which I'm counting as two completed goals) and combining the "read 1 new book a month" and "draw 100 pages in a sketch book" I'll count that as one completed goal. I went through all my ASL cards, though I'm not fluent, OH! I also wanted to pay off 6k loan that I had. I want to count this one as a success because I DID FUCKING PAY OVER 6 THOUSAND DOLLARS IN LOANS THIS YEAR. I got a surprise loan I had no idea about in june that was 1500 dollars, which threw me off. I managed to pay it off in 2 months, BUT IF THAT LOAN HAD NEVER EXISTED I TOTALLY WOULD HAVE FINISHED PAYING OFF THE 6K ONE. I've got a little over a thousand left to pay on the 6k loan now, which I will complete by the end of January. I'm so close to being under 10k in debt... GOALS FOR 2018 1)Go from being 5 figures in student loan debt down to 4 figures in debt (pay off 2 out of 4 loans) If everything goes according to Keikaku I'll achieve this by the end of June. This has to factor in things like updating my car registration in april, oil changes, tune ups, tire rotation, gas and food expenses, but as long as I don't get fired I should be fine! 2) Stretch Daily Not exercise. I never exercise. But it would be nice to increase my flexibility. 3) STOP TOUCHING YOUR GODDAMN FACE/ find an effective acne treatment I also want to try washing my face daily. Im fucking 25. I shouldn't have this many pimples. 4) Do another song comic I made A lyrictale for Undertale at the end of 2015 in ten days. I want to make another. I already have it scripted, now I just need to do it. 5) Do at least one art stream a month. Hey, maybe I can stream the next song comic I do. Sure, it'd spoil the song and story for everyone, but doesn't that sound fun? 6)Practice ASL I just started looking into Memrise and their ASL courses. They actually have A LOT, AND! THEY HAVE SIGN LANGUAGE COURSES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES! This year is gonna be fun. (Also, the only reason I want to learn ASL because of Undertale. I'll let you figure out how they are connected) 7) Sew 4 stuffed animals I started sewwing a Hobbes plush in the middle of last year. His body is finished. I just never did the head. The other three stuffed animals I want to make I will keep a secret because I love to keep people guessing. 8) Make two AMVs There are two songs I want to put to Avatar; The Last Airbender, and Avatar; The Legend of Korra. I have about half the footage... I just... need to rewatch the shows and put the clips together. Hey, maybe after I find all the clips I can do a stream of that as well. 9) Last but not least, finish my many, MANY Undertale Fan Fics. a. You Monster (34 out of 37 chapters are written, but only 29 are posted) b. Finish the "Of Two Minds" series (it's explicit don't look) c. Color Theory (A chasriel one shot) d. Something Left Behind (Terrible AU Idea #647) e. Let's Get Real (Self insert, joke, parody thing that will also be explicit) f. Game Day! (something about soccer games with Mettaton along the same vain as Field Trip!) g. Would You Like Fries With That (Nicepants because there's not enough of it in the world) h. Science Fair! (something with Undyne and school projects along the same vain as Field Trip!) i. One that is so horribly dark and fucked that I won't even describe it here. Welp! Those are my goals for 2018! What are your goals for 2018? Whatever they are, I wish you success and improvement, health and wealth! Stay safe this year! I love you all~